1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of fire rescue equipment, and more particularly to an apparatus that includes a fully equipped and complete ambulance, known in the industry as a “rescue transport,” which is permanently combined in a single vehicle with a fully equipped and complete fire engine, of a type known in the industry as a “pumper.” This permanent combination of what is has previouly been two separate vehicles on a single chassis provides full and complete functions for rescue transport and fire suppression. These functions are in substantial compliance with the requirements of National Fire Protection Standard 1901 (“NFPA 1901”) for a fire suppression apparatus in the form of a pumper, in permanent combination on a single chassis with an ambulance or a rescue transport that is in substantial compliance with the requirements of Federal standard KKK-A-1822E. Compliance with these standards is important to both approval by governmental authorities for use of the invention in practice, and for sales purposes. However, since standards such as NFPA 1901 and KKK-A-1822E are revised from time to time, both of these standards should be viewed for purposes of this document as fixed in the form in which they existed on Apr. 5, 2004, the filing date of the parent of this application, and they are not claimed.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In many communities and cities in the United States the functions of fire fighting and emergency medical services with ambulance transport are combined into a single agency. That agency is mostly referred to as to “fire rescue.” Frequently, its personnel receive exceptional training in dual disciplines, i.e., as emergency medical technicians or paramedics and as fire fighters.
These fire rescue agencies reside in facilities that are scattered about the political subdivision from which they are organized and employed. These facilities have historically been referred to as firehouses although they very frequently contain rescue transport vehicles commonly referred to as ambulances. To minimize response time, fire rescue personnel that are not volunteers reside in these firehouses when they are on duty.
In most communities, population densities vary significantly. In areas where there is a high population density, it is economical to purchase, maintain, and operate separate fire suppression and rescue transport vehicles because the usage rate justifies the capital cost, maintenance, and personnel expenses associated therewith. However, in outlying areas where the population density is much less, it is more difficult to economically justify the existence of separate vehicles for these vital functions, although heretofore there has been no choice. The fire rescue agency has the responsibility of supplying both emergency medical service/rescue transport and fire fighting capability to all areas of a community within a reasonable response time but the expense of doing that in separate vehicles in outlying areas is disproportionate on a per capita basis when compared to more densely populated areas. The present invention provides political subdivisions with a meaningful choice in whether to acquire and maintain separate vehicles for fire suppression and emergency medical service/rescue transport, or to combine those functions in a single vehicle with attendant significant economies.
So far as is presently known, there has not been any attempt to permanently combine complete rescue transport and complete pumper fire suppression functions in a single vehicle. The only instance known to the present inventor from a pre-examination search of the prior art where those functions were sought to be combined even minimally in a single vehicle without task targeted alteration is Sioutis, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 2003/0102685 A1. Sioutis alleges to serve three functions, fire fighting, freeing and rescuing injured and trapped persons, and medical transport as an ambulance. Sioutis is especially designed for use with automobile accidents, having equipment to free people trapped in crushed vehicles and the ability to transport the injured after being freed. But its only fire suppression capability is a few fire extinguishers. In reality, all rescue transport vehicles carry one or more fire extinguishers anyway, and most carry equipment to free people trapped in crushed vehicles. Sioutis is not really a fire suppression piece of apparatus at all in the sense of NFPA 1901. It specifically lacks any pumper capability such as possessed by the present invention.
Another reference that addresses the notion of multiple functions in the fire, ambulance, and rescue fields is Simmons, U.S. Pat. No. 5,573,300. It teaches a utility vehicle having off road capability and a number modules that must be exchanged for different functions such as fire fighting or ambulance or rescue or tactical operations by law enforcement. Simmons does not purport to have the capability of rescue transport and fire suppression on the same vehicle at the same time without task targeted alteration. Recognizing that fires and trauma medical services are by their very nature emergencies requiring instant response, there is no time to be switching modules as is taught by Simmons.
Other references disclosed by the search are either rescue transport vehicles or fire suppression vehicles. For the record these include Williams, U.S. Pat. No. 5,245,930 and Zeman, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,178,432 as transporters, and Carrier, U.S. Pat. No. 6,029,750 and Staudinger, U.S. Pat. No. 4,678,041 as fire suppression vehicles. Other references of lesser interest are Glatzmeier, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,785,372 for a self supporting box structure for utility vehicles particularly fire fighting vehicles, Hawelka, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,830,421 and Hvolka, U.S. Pat. No. 5,082,082.
In the prosecution of the parent application of this invention, the Examiner cited several other references that were not discovered in the pre-examination search. The first of these is McLoughlin, U.S. Pat. No. 5,467,827. It teaches a modular fire truck having a flat bed that includes a conveyor for loading a number of interchangeable firefighting modules onto the bed. It does not teach the permanent combination of an ambulance (rescue transport) that can handle a plurality of patients on stretchers and a fire truck (pumper) at all. To the extent that it is a fire truck, it is very impractical because a fire is an emergency as noted above and there is not time to load and secure the modules disclosed in McLoughlin.
A second reference cited by the Examiner in the parent application is Gibson, U.S. Pat. No. 4,037,664 which teaches a fire fighting-foam producing module. This reference also entirely fails to teach anything about a fully equipped ambulance in permanent combination with a pumper on a single chassis.
None of the above cited references teach the true permanent marriage of a complete fire suppression pumper along with a complete rescue transport vehicle that both meet essentially all the standards applicable to each such apparatus with both being fixedly attached to a single chassis. For purposes of this document “fixedly attached” means permanently attached, and excludes the notion of task targeted alteration or replacement of the pumper and rescue transport modules, e.g., replacing a hose module with a tank module as taught in McLoughlin, U.S. Pat. No. 5,467,827.